much to someone's delight
- idiom
:
para gran deleite de alguien
- The magician's final trick amazed everyone in the audience, much to their delight.
Examples
-
They exited and ran into a crowd encircling a huge chicken who was sputtering wildly in apparent exasperation, much to everyone's delight.
Fiction book (1998) -
Much to my delight.
-
The children laughed and cheered, much to their parents' delight.
-
When she opened the surprise gift, much to her delight, it was the book she had wanted.
Synonyms
1
4.7
News that makes someone feel very happy or relieved
Antonyms
223
1.7
A feeling of sadness or being let down when something you wanted does not happen
Surface Forms
Morphology
much + to + someone's + delight
The phrase is compositionally transparent: 'delight' denotes pleasure, 'someone's' marks the experiencer, 'to' indicates that the event is directed toward that state, and 'much' simply intensifies the effect. The overall meaning ('caused someone great pleasure') follows directly from these parts (despite being somewhat formal), and similar constructions exist cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner who knows the words will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Much to someone's delight uses a clear picture: something happens and comes to a person like a welcome gift, with much showing it is a large amount and someone's delight naming the happy feeling. That's why it means 'caused someone a great deal of pleasure'.